


Critical Role Relationship Week: Two Character Pairings

by aunt_zelda



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol, Bioluminescence, Blow Jobs, Courtly Love, Critical Role Relationship Week, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hair Braiding, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Night Terrors, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pet Names, Recovery, Scars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:38:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: I'm going to try and do the Critical Role Relationship Week. I went through the pairing generator and got some good pairings, so let's see what I can do. Not all will be romantic or sexual.Chapter specific warnings will be put on each chapter as well.





	1. Day 1: Allura & Kash

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: Allura Vysoren and Kashaw Vesh

“Hold still.”

Kash squirms. “I’m trying,” he growls. 

“Don’t snap at me.”

Kash rolls his eyes. 

“If you think I need my wife to kick your ass, think again. She encourages me to fight my own battles.”

Kash glances over to where Lady Kima is drilling the volunteer army. He has them in the mornings, she has them in the afternoons. It’s not really to form an army, it’s to keep the villagers and refugees busy and feeling like they’re being useful. Breaking up the monotony of digging and fortification building with combat drills isn’t the worst idea. It’s better than letting people wait around, dwelling on dark things, and turning to drink and other coping methods. 

He sighs. “Must be nice, having a wife who … y’know, loves you.”

Allura’s hands still in their work, halfway through a braid. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Kash shrugs. “It was the bloody village’s fault. And Her, but, well, gods. What can you do?” He barks a laugh, more painful that he wishes it sounded. 

Allura resumes the braiding. “Survive,” she says grimly, with the determination that comes of dealing with such beings. 

“Your wife’s got a god, right? The platinum dragon?”

“Yes.”

“That must be tough.”

“Sometimes, yes. For the past few years, we were apart. Her duties kept her far away from me.” Allura ties off the braid. “There you are.”

Kash reaches back and feels at the braid. It’s a good one, taking his hair on both sides and weaving it together to keep it out of his face. “Thanks. Feels like a good one.”

“You’re welcome.”

Kash shifts on the blanket beneath the tree. “Want me to do yours?”

Allura touches her loose hair. “I … well, would you mind?”

“Wouldn’t offer if I minded.” Kash grunts. 

Allura pulls a few ribbons from a pouch at her belt, hands them to him, and moves on the blanket to put her back to Kash. 

“Lot of hair,” Kash comments, starting to divide Allura’s locks into sections, “I’m a bit rusty, so, bear with me.”

“I’m in no hurry today,” Allura says.

Kash remembers doing this for his mother, for girls in the village, remembers the patterns with his muscles though his mind drifts far far away. Over, over, pull from the sides … the hair begins to take the shape of a fish tail.


	2. Day 2: Shaun Gilmore / Vax’ildan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asked a friend for a prompt, and they gave me "glow."
> 
> Welp, time to air one of my lesser known kinks for the world to see.

Vax slumps onto the bed, sweaty and more than a little bit smug. His jaw aches, but that’s a small price to pay as far as he’s concerned. The noises Gilmore was making for the past several minutes were worth all the jaw soreness in the world. 

Gilmore fumbles for Vax with his eyelids mostly shut, managing to tangle his fingers in Vax’s hair briefly. 

Turning to ask Gilmore about a second round, Vax stops, staring in shock.

“Shaun … you’re … you’re _glowing_.”

Gilmore jerks, eyes opening wide. “Oh! Oh dear …” a faint golden light shimmers around him. 

“Are you alright?” Vax feels a stab of panic. “Have you been cursed?”

Gilmore waves a hand. “Please, be calm, Vax. This is perfectly normal for … well, someone like me.” He taps at his forehead, where the runic symbol, usually hidden, now pulses in time with the radiance emanating off of his skin. 

“So you’re ok?” Vax tentatively reaches out, running a finger along Gilmore’s bare arm. The man’s skin feels exactly as it had before. 

“Yes. Embarrassed, mostly. I thought I’d left this sort of thing in my teenage years.” Gilmore grins. “I suppose that’s a compliment to your talents. You make me feel young again.”

Vax snorts. “You’re not exactly a grandsire, Shaun. And I consider it a privilege, truly.”

Gilmore, already seeming to glow like the sun on a summer evening, blushes. “You are too kind, my darling boy.”

Vax _whimpers_.

Gilmore raises an eyebrow. “Well, I think it’s high time I return the favor, yes?” One hand slides down along Vax’s chest, belly, and finally encircles Vax’s cock. “Unless you’d prefer my mouth?”

“No,” Vax shakes his head. “Just keep … talking, please?”

“About what?”

“ _Anything_.”

Gilmore smiles, and the glowing light blazes with intensity.


	3. Day 3: Percy de Rolo / Kashaw Vesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Whoops, the challenge week ran away from me and instead of posting this on 2/08, this is being posted on 2/14.)
> 
> Prompt: knives
> 
> Chapter specific warnings: alcohol, scars, mention of torture, implied/referenced rape, recovery

Kashaw knows now, after many years of mild disasters, that he should not be alone on this particular night. 

The autumnal equinox is not an especially significant event for most people. Winter’s Crest, the height of summer, even the coming of spring, those are celebrated far and wide. Fall festivals are always shifting village to village, city to city, depending on the weather and when the harvest is brought in. 

Kashaw can feel the specific day when the days start to shorten, when the frost comes, when the plants wither. 

That’s when his wife is closest at hand. 

That’s when Kashaw knows he should not be alone. 

He finds himself in Whitestone this year. The harvest was early, bountiful, and the celebrations were a bit on the extravagant side. Years of poor harvest and a curse upon the land: finally lifted. Gods bless Vox Machina, and all that. Kashaw drank, and tried not to think about how he saw his wife in every shadow that night. 

Now the harvest is in, the fields are being tended one final time, and people are starting to settle in for the winter. 

He walks during the day, paces the length of the town over and over. Pointlessly, he hopes to tire himself out, though he knows he won’t get any sleep this night, not until dawn breaks. 

The suns sinks and he reluctantly makes his way to the castle. Not to his room, but to one of the common areas. He builds a fire, shoos one of the well-meaning servants away, and sits on the floor with his back to the wall. A castle as big as this means people are bustling about at all hours: servants, guards, the de Rolo siblings who seem more nocturnal than most, all pacing and scurrying and working.

Percy finds him a bit past midnight. He’s carrying a steaming mug and a heavy book, and seems startled by Kashaw’s presence. 

“Good … evening?” Percy says, confused. 

Kashaw grunts. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. All he knows is that the shadows are darkest tonight.

Percy seems poised to speak, then thinks better of it. He takes a chair on the other side of the room and opens his book.  
Kashaw stokes the fire at intervals. After a time, Percy leaves. Kashaw thinks he’s gone for good, but then Percy returns, with a stack of books, and two steaming mugs. He sets one mug on the floor beside Kashaw, and the stack of books. 

“What are these for?”

“Reading.” Percy’s eyes flash in the firelight. 

Kashaw snorts. He grabs one at random and starts to read. He doesn’t really process the words, but it occupies a part of his mind at least, and that’s better than nothing. 

“Should I be worried?” Percy asks, some time later. 

“About what?” Kashaw asks. 

“Your arm.”

Kashaw looks down. The scars are glowing, half pulsing with blue light, half seemingly bleeding into the air like they’re fresh. “Oh, that.” He sighs heavily, snapping the book shut. “Nope.” He drinks from the mug, tastes the kick of something alcoholic in the hearty brew and grins mirthlessly. He doesn’t want to get drunk tonight, but a bit of a buzz will help. 

“Should you be worried?”

Kashaw looks up sharply. Percy is peering at him through his strange spectacles, staring right into his soul it seems. 

“Nah. Just … barriers, y’know? Between the worlds? Tonight’s the night for … this.” He waves a hand at his glowing arm. “I’ll be over with by morning.”

Percy nods, and goes back to his book. 

“What, you’re not curious?” Kashaw asks. People stare daily at his arm, and that’s just when it’s covered in normal scars, not magical ones. 

“If you want to share, by all means,” Percy turns a page. “I know something of that.”

“Do you?” Kashaw feels a prickle of anger building in his gut. 

Percy closes his book and sets it aside. “Yes. I suppose it’s only fair,” he stands, unravels his neck cloth, and unfastens the laces and buttons of his shirt and vest. “You’ve shown me yours, after all.”

Kashaw expects war wounds. Vox Machina has been in their fair share of scrapes. He isn’t expecting the detailed, purposeful markings of knives and brands, interlacing from Percy’s throat down his chest and to the crest of his breeches. The way some of the scars are, Kashaw can tell they go further down, around, all over. Patterns of knife markings overlay his ribs, like some perverse anatomical sketch. 

“She whipped my back, and other things, but it’s rather chilly tonight.” Percy covers himself once more, and wraps the cloth around his neck. “So, not a goddess, but I do know something of scars, and the women who like to make them.”

Kashaw’s lips twist. “Fair enough.” He holds up the mug. “Two more questions. What’s in this, and can you and I split a bottle of it?”

Percy smiles thinly. “I think that’s an excellent idea. I’ll go fetch us one.”


	4. Day 4: Kaylie Shorthalt / Pike Trickfoot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Whoops, the challenge week ran away from me and instead of posting this on 2/09, this is being posted on 2/14.)
> 
> Prompt: Yearning

The more time Kaylie spends in Whitestone, the more she can see the reasons why her father fell for the cleric of Sarenrae. And the more she sees the reasons, the angrier she gets. 

Kaylie’s had crushes before. Attraction flares, burns, and eventually dies in her chest. Sometimes it leaves an ache, and sometimes it leaves nothing behind at all. 

Her feelings for Pike Trickfoot mount daily, towering as high as the Sun Tree. There’s seemingly no end to the reasons Kaylie sees. The way Pike smiles. The way she laughs. The glint of her armor in sunlight. The way she braids her hair. Her voice reading out prayers. Her hands healing wounds. Her ass in trousers as she bends to heft a wooden beam for the temple reconstruction. 

In her old life, Kaylie would have tried to seduce Pike, but then she had an easy escape with the traveling musicians. In Whitestone for the foreseeable future, there is no such escape for her. This is the woman her father has spent the better part of three years trying to woo, unsuccessfully. Though they never did anything, it seems a bit … icky, to Kaylie, to tread where her father had previously tread, to try and ply the cleric with song and winks and half her father’s face. She has devoted so much of her life to not becoming her father. Wooing his former lady love would not help her in that quest. 

So Kaylie pines, and yearns, and simmers like a soup over a flame. But she does not woo Pike Trickfoot.


	5. Day 5: Pike Trickfoot / Cassandra de Rolo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Whoops, the challenge week ran away from me and instead of posting this on 2/10, this is being posted on 2/14.)
> 
> Prompt: Loyalty
> 
> Chapter specific warnings: recovery, night terrors, implied/referenced child abuse

When Cassandra was a little girl, she heard tales and ballads of gallant knights rescuing distressed nobility. Since her mother Johanna had once worn armor, the traveling bards often tweaked classic stories to include more women doing the rescuing than in other parts of Exandria. At age nine, Cassandra had declared that if she was to be married someday, since she was going to be last, she wanted a tournament held for her hand, so she could watch dozens of knights compete for her. Her siblings had teased her mercilessly about that. 

And then, suddenly, her siblings were no longer there to tease her. Or to do anything at all. Not even to breathe. 

Cassandra shut away her thoughts of knights and heroes during the long, painful, horrible five years she lived among the Briarwoods. Nobody was coming to save her, so she would have to save herself. She would have to endure, alone. The silly child who’d dreamed of knights in armor had died with her siblings. 

Seeing Pike Trickfoot, blazing with holy light, smiting Sylas, was like something out of one of those old ballads. The fact that she had been translucent and non-corporeal had aided in that perception. 

Meeting the cleric in the flesh had not dispelled the impression though, only cemented it. Pike Trickfoot was a hero of old, come to Whitestone to restore a temple and bless the land. Cassandra felt her childhood fancies returning, timidly at first, then bolder and brighter with each passing day. 

One night when Cassandra dreamed, as she often did, of the Briarwoods, she woke in her bedchamber not alone. Pike was seated at her bedside, lighting the stubs of the guttered out candles. 

“How did you know?” Cassandra asked, voice hoarse from the screaming. Pike slept at the temple, far from the castle. 

“I … felt that I was needed.” Pike’s brow furrowed. “I can leave, if you wish.”

Cassandra shook her head. “No, please.” A sudden thought came to her. “Don’t … don’t tell anyone, please? My dreams are … they’re mine.” She did not want more pity, she’d had enough of that to last a dozen lifetimes. Nor did she want people suggesting, in pleasant and well-meaning tones, that they send for her elder brother to take command of the castle and let her “rest” from active duties. 

“Of course, milady,” Pike dipped her head and smiles. “You have my word.”

Cassandra blushed. She wished she had rather more than that, of the cleric. 

Pike glanced away, but Cassandra though she might spot a hint of a blush on Pike’s cheeks as well. 

Perhaps … perhaps in the future Cassandra might indeed have all that the ballads had promised her in her youth.


End file.
